Hi all,
Has anyone successfully removed mycorrhizae from soil and roots before inoculating plants with controlled amounts of mycorrhizal spores? I have an undergrad student that would like to look at the effects of mycorrhizae on various ecological measures, but the plants she has to work with were planted in unsterilized soil. Because of that, we do not know what, if anything, is in the soil. We don't mind transplanting to sterile soil, but even if we do, the roots might still harbor mycorrhizae and/or dark septate endophytes. We also would like to cause minimum damage to the plants with the fungicide. I wonder if there is a good way to kill pre-existing fungi, without killing the plant and, if so, how long would I have to wait before inoculating with our own strains of myocrrhizal spores?
Thank you, in advance!
Dear Demetra
Removing the fungi in the roots would be a very difficult task without using very harmful fungicides. Even with this I will doubt if fungi are removed completely. The best way to perform your experiment would be to start with brand new plants and with sterilized soil. The only way to remove all fungi from soil (including those with heat resistant spores) are gamma rays, a 50 kilogray dosis will completely sterilize the soil.
However, if you cant have new plants, to my knowledge a possible approach to remove existing symbiosis from the roots would be to fertilize the substrate with high amounts of N and P. This way the plant would have all the nutrients it needs without the need of mycorrhiza and should stop feeding them. This way after some time the root would be almost clean. Then you can transplant your plants to sterile substrate but before that you need to trim the secondary roots to reduce the chance of still getting fungi to the experiment. This may work but not necessary would remove the 100% of the mycorrhizal fungi from roots.
good luck
I'm facing the same problem. Nothofagus seedlings provided by our greenhouse team are colonized by ECM. Of course an overdose of NPK would prevent the developement of further EM root tips... but in order to sinthesise the desired ones, you would have to get rid of the fertilizers. wouldn't the former symbionts come back in this scenario?... maybe overdosing, root pruning and fungicide together might work. But I'm not finding papers on this regard.
Keep us posted on your results!
Benomyl and thiophanate-methyl are used to suppress/eradicate AM fungi from soil and plants (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18833748). ECM and root endophytic fungi are more difficult.
What about vegetative propagation/rooting to above-ground organs into sterile soil?
Hello Demetra
I think there are many methods, I attached for you some useful references 1
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.1989.tb00314.x/pdf
2
http://mycorrhizae.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Inoculate-with-Mycorrhizae-PDF.pdf
7
https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jrm/article/viewFile/8493/8105
9
https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jrm/article/viewFile/8493/8105
11
https://www.gardenerspantry.ca/microorganisms/mycorrhizal-fungi.html
12
https://www.asmscience.org/content/book/10.1128/9781555815882.ch51?crawler...
13
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.720.7952&rep=rep1&type=pdf
14
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.421.4806&rep=rep1&type=pdf
15
https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/20012/9789513935559.pdf?sequence=1
16
http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v6/n10/full/nrmicro1987.html?foxtrotcallback=true
20
https://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2017.00665/pdf
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